The Jews of Poland
by Jedrzej Giertych
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jedrzej GiertychEdition: Perfect Paperback
Audio: English (Published); English (Unknown)
Published: 1986
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 85
Publisher: J. Jankowiak
Book Reviews of The Jews of Poland
Book Review: A Nuanced View of Polish-Jewish Relations
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is a chapter of In defence of my country, and my present review complements that of the former.
Far from treating Jews as a monolith, Giertych individualizes Jewish conduct relative to Poland. He praises eminent Poles of Jewish origin, including Julian Klaczko, Julian Tuwim, Antoni Slominski, Artur Rubinstein, and many others. (p. 49).
Giertych traces the origins of the eventual Polish boycotts of Jewish commercial establishments: "The end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century was a time of mass migration of the rural population of Poland into towns...the urbanized Polish peasantry encountered...an alien population of the towns which monopolized in its hands a great deal of Polish commerce and industry. Young peasant boys and girls could not get jobs in shops and many artisan undertakings, because Jewish shopkeepers and artisans kept these jobs for their coreligionists...(Poles)...who tried to start some trades on their own, were soon crushed, as undesirable competitors, by Jewish wholesalers and money lenders...The large factories, supported by capital from Germany and by Russian government protection, were to a large extent in Jewish hands." (pp. 27-28).
As for Judeopolonia [Judeo-Polonia], Giertych does not discuss the WWI-era Max Bodenheimer Plan (for joint Jewish-German rule over former Congress Poland), but he does see Judeocracy as a legitimate Polish concern, at least applicable to the pre-WWII situation: "If Stalin had been able to become the ruler of Poland before 1941, i. e. at the time when the Jews formed nearly 10% of Poland's population--the situation would have been quite different. A Communist rule in Poland, having an ethnical basis in the Jewish minority, would have been something much stronger and more permanent than the actual rule of the Bermans and Rozanskis. The spirit and essence of Poland would have been destroyed in such a situation. Poland would really have become a `Judeo-Polonia' [Judeopolonia]..."
While acknowledging the fact that innocent Jews were wronged in the process, Giertych contends that the 1968 anti-Jewish events had been a delayed reaction to the strong overrepresentation of Jews in the original Soviet puppet state, and part of the gradual process of Polish emancipation: "Poland is too big and too strong a country to remain on the long run a helpless colony of Russia and to be ruled by an alien ruling class. Several mini-revolutions, and a slow, incessant evolution have overthrown the ruling class, imposed on Poland by Stalin. In 1968, about 60 prominent people of Jewish origin were dismissed from their jobs in Poland (together with a few Poles, such as Edward Ochab), and about 2,000 Jews were expelled from the Polish Communist Party...One has to regret the injustices which went together with this and it is impossible not to express sympathy to those who suffered unjustly. But on the other hand, it is impossible also not to understand that this `purge' of the stooges of Stalin's rule over Poland and the real oppressors of Poland was in fact an indispensable act of liberation." (pp. 79-80).
Without mentioning Solidarity by name, Giertych alluded to one of the wings of the Solidarity movement: "By the way, some of the members of the Jewish ruling class of Communist Poland, or their sons, now play an important role as `dissidents'. But these atheists of Jewish origin, former members of the Communist Party and still followers of the essential parts of the doctrine of Marx, do not really represent the feelings of the Polish nation." (p. 80).
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